Like many today, I'm thoroughly obsessed with watching, reading about, and listening to stories of true crime. From "Dateline" and "Serial" to "Making a Murderer" and "The Confession Tapes," I can't quite get enough of this sordid form of entertainment. (Exploring the psychological reasons for said obsession are best left for another time.)

If you spend enough time in the genre, you know one of the fundamental true crime truths: Most stories do not have happy endings. The majority end with grief and a grave.

However, there are some rare cases in which targets manage to fight back and survive. Not only that, they muster the courage to face their attackers in court and put them behind bars.

The following seven individuals did just that and saw justice served.

1/

Corazon Amurao hid and a serial killer forgot about her.

Corazon Amurao, the star witness in the Richard Speck trial, arriving at the courthouse in 1967.
AP

Richard Speck's 1966 murder spree lasted almost six hours. After forcing his way into the Chicago home of nine female student nurses, he systematically robbed, raped, beat, strangled, and stabbed eight of them.

Only one survived — Corazon Amurao — who had opened the front door to him that fateful night. She hid under a bed and played dead, and Speck later said he lost count of the women during the carnage because he was so intoxicated. She fled the scene and found help.

Amurao provided a sketch of the suspect, including details about his "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo, and later testified against him in court. He was convicted of eight murders and sentenced to death. That sentence was later overturned and changed to eight consecutive terms in prison. He died in prison from a heart attack in 1991.

Carol DaRonch fled Ted Bundy.

In 1974, Carol DaRonch, a resident of Salt Lake City, Utah, narrowly escaped the clutches of one of the most diabolical serial killers of all time: Ted Bundy.

Dressed as a police officer, Bundy approached DaRonch in a parking lot, explained that her car had almost been stolen, and said she needed to file a report with him. She followed him to his Volkswagen and got inside where he quickly handcuffed her and tried to strike her with a crowbar. However, DaRonch resisted and fled.

Her story provided police with important details about Bundy's abduction techniques, and in 1975, an officer pulled over Bundy in his Volkswagen (which they knew about from DaRonch's report), in which they found handcuffs. They arrested Bundy, DaRonch identified him as the culprit, and he was put behind bars.

Even though he later escaped from prison, he was recaptured in 1978. After confessing to killing 28 women, he was sentenced to death and executed in Florida in 1989.

3/

Maria Viricheva survived being pushed down a well.

Alexander Pichushkin is followed by a policeman as he enters the courtroom for preliminary hearings at a Moscow court on August 13, 2007.
REUTERS/Alexander Natruskin

In 2002, Maria Viricheva — 19 years old and three months pregnant — met one of Russia's most infamous serial killers, Alexander Pichushkin, also known as The Chessboard Killer (when he was caught in 2007 and charged with 48 murders, authorities found a chessboard marked with the dates of his kills).

He approached Viricheva in a Moscow metro station and offered her some work. When they arrived at a spot designated by Pichushkin, he pushed her down a 30-foot well. She managed to avoid drowning and climbed her way to the surface where a passerby heard her cries.

Although she reported the incident to police, they didn't investigate. She was only brought in to identify Pichushkin in 2007 — after he had committed many more murders. He was sentenced to life in prison.

4/

Whitney Bennett survived an attack by the "Night Stalker."

Richard Ramirez, also known as the "Night Stalker," listens as he is sentenced to death in 1989.
AP

Sometimes the tiniest decisions change the course of our lives forever. In 1989, 16-year-old Whitney Bennett left her bedroom window unlocked at her home in Sierra Madre, California.

Richard Ramirez, known as the "Night Stalker," entered via the window and attacked her during the night. He beat her severely with a tire iron, choked her, stole her jewelry, and left a bloody footprint behind. Her injuries were so severe that she needed cosmetic surgery.

Ramirez attacked and killed another woman shortly after in a similar scenario. Thanks in part to Bennett's emotional testimony in court, the devil-worshipping Ramirez received the death penalty and was executed in 2013.

5/

Teresa Thornhill fought off a serial killer on the side of the road.

Serial killer Robert Black spent two decades preying on young girls in the United Kingdom and was eventually convicted of four murders (authorities suspected he was responsible for many more). However, the one that got away was 15-year-old Teresa Thornhill.

In 1988, Black pretended he was having engine trouble while parked on a street near her house. When she approached, he grabbed her and tried to pull her into his van. She fought back, bit his arm, and ran home.

Although Black escaped, Thornhill had her day in court. She and other witnesses testified against Black, and he received a life sentence. He died of a heart attack in 2016.

6/

Kate Moir escaped from the home of a serial killing couple.

In 1986, Kate Moir was abducted by Australian serial killers David and Catherine Birnie. She was just 17 when the couple brought her back to their home where she was tortured, raped, handcuffed, and forced to sleep in bed with the couple after.

Moir made a daring escape out a window the next day when David was at work and Catherine was buying drugs.

Police apparently didn't believe her story at first, but thanks to some details she remembered (they had watched "Rocky" on VHS and listened to the band Dire Straits, which were still in the players, and she saw David's name on a medicine bottle), she was able to convince them.

David was found dead in his cell in 2005 and Catherine is still in prison.

7/

Tracy Edwards escaped Jeffrey Dahmer.

Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
Allen Fredrickson/REUTERS

When Milwaukee, Wisconsin, police officers saw a man running down the street in handcuffs in 1991, little did they know what they were getting into. That man, Tracy Edwards, told them that he had just escaped being murdered by another man: Jeffrey Dahmer.

Edwards led police back to Dahmer's home, where they found severed heads in his fridge and freezer, among other dismembered body parts. Edwards was a crucial witness in the case against the cannibal and serial killer, who confessed to 17 gruesome murders and was sentenced to 15 life terms. He was killed by another inmate in 1994.

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